He was a strong supporter of keeping U.S. Vice President Henry A. Wallace on the ticket, rather than replacing him with Harry S. Truman of Missouri, which occurred.

His opponent, Handy Ellis, attacked Folsom by saying his election would threaten segregation laws and encourage "communist-backed labor unions".

"[3] Folsom was among the first Southern governors to advocate a moderate position on racial integration and improvement of civil rights for African Americans.

[5] Undaunted, nine days after the suit was filed Folsom appeared on the sidewalk in front of the Barbizon Modeling School in New York City, where he kissed a hundred pretty models who had voted him "The Nation's Number One Leap Year Bachelor," attracting a crowd of 2500 onlookers and causing a traffic jam.

Because of the negative publicity surrounding the suit, Folsom lost his bid to represent Alabama as a favorite son candidate for president in an election held on May 4, 1948.

[6] On May 5, 1948, without prior publicity, Folsom married the 20-year-old Jamelle Moore, a secretary at the state Highway Department, whom he had met during his 1946 campaign and had been dating and seeing "almost daily" since then.

As noted by one study, Folsom brought to power "a legislative slate that gave him a working majority in both the House and Senate.

Folsom opposed capital punishment, stating that he would always grant clemency in death penalty cases "if I can find some excuse."

Folsom said he "just couldn't" commute the death sentence of a black man who had been convicted of raping a white woman, since it would destroy him politically.

[14] An Act of September 1947 raised the minimum age of employment of children from 14 to 16 for all occupations during school hours, "except in agriculture and domestic service, and for work in manufacturing establishments or canneries at any time."

Another Act from that same month provided for the establishment of a second injury fund "financed by payment by employer of $500 in death cases where there are no dependents.

[23] A farm-to-market roads program improved rural life while the establishment of an industrial development commission pleased business, while funding for health, welfare, education and old-age pensions was increased.

A sardonic slogan that referred to Folsom's reputation for taking graft emerged during that campaign: "Something for everyone and a little bit for Big Jim."

In the general election, Lurleen handily defeated the Republican nominee, James D. Martin, a one-term US representative from Gadsden.

[43] A documentary film about Folsom Big Jim Folsom: The Two Faces of Populism Archived 2007-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, was produced in 1996 by the Alabama filmmaker Robert Clem and won the 1997 International Documentary Association/ABCNews VideoSource Award and the Southeastern Filmmaker Award at the 1997 Atlanta Film Festival.

In the 1997 TNT film George Wallace, directed by John Frankenheimer, Jim Folsom is played by Joe Don Baker, who was nominated for a CableACE award for his performance.

[45][46][44] In 1948, Christine Putman Johnston filed suit requesting legal recognition of her and Folsom's common-law marriage, and his paternity of her 22-month-old son, James Douglas.

Folsom, Jr. decided to re-enter state politics in 2006, qualified, and eventually won the lieutenant governor's position again; he served from 2007 to 2011.